by Julia Griffin

“Suez Canal traffic jam ‘cleared’ days after Ever Given cargo ship freed”
—NBC

Tell me, who is
Stuck in Suez?
MV Ever
Given? Never!

Ever Given?
Was she driven
By a cretin?
Call’s not yet in;

Some tribunal
Surely soon’ll
Find the answer:
Did some chancer

Fraud or tyro,
Come to Cairo,
Wreaking mess-ups?
Had De Lesseps—

Mining master,
Granite-blaster—
Seen ahead to
What it led to,

He’d have left it;
But he cleft it.
Now the vessel
Has to nestle

(Or she’d splinter)
Somewhere inter-
Continental,
Monumental,

Traffic-blocking,
Market-shocking,
Wedged and dented,
Much-resented,

And in Suez,
Where the view is
Wrecked and riven,
Unforgiven

by Jesse Anna Bornemann

“We’ve heard of a ‘Yellow Submarine.’ But a ‘Green Submarine’? Well, Sir, that’s simply a step too far.
On Thursday, March 18, Paul McCartney announced that he is releasing a picture book called
Grandude’s Green Submarine, which is actually an ‘exciting sequel’ to his 2020 picture-book debut,
Hey Grandude!”
—Vulture

I Want to Hold Your Other Hand
Sgt. Pepper’s Cousin’s Band

Strawberry Fields on Tuesdays Only
Evelyn Rigby (Much Less Lonely)

Let It Be…Or Maybe Not
Octopus’s Parking Lot

Mr. Ketchup Isn’t Mean!
Come Together (Post-Vaccine)

These are my ideas, Sir Paul…
I’ll be waiting for your call.

by Bruce Bennett

“This Mama Bear Struggling to Cross Road With Her Cubs Is Every Parent”
—NBC

It’s not a mountain, just a road.
No matter. Mama Bear
must get her four cubs safe across.
Although police are there

And traffic’s at a stand-still, she
has not the time to dally.
Percy is on the other side,
and Reg, but where is Sally?

That silly girl has climbed a pole!
And Gert’s nowhere in sight.
At this rate, going back and forth
will take until tonight,

And then she’ll still have miles to go.
The woods are dark and deep,
but dammit! It’s been days and days
since she’s had any sleep!

by Nora Jay

“Nike sues the maker of Lil Nas X ‘Satan Shoes’ for trademark infringement”
—CNN

Ah, Lil Nas X, I fear you may be sorry:
Already Nike’s marked you for its quarry!—
And though you may disdain the thought of Nike
(They only want your money, not your psyche),
Alas, they are not all you’ve been infringing.
Now, Lil, you won’t, I hope, indulge in whingeing:
You must have known it isn’t on the level
To sell his shoes and not inform the Devil.
After the pains you took—the fiendish logo—
I almost hate to tell you that it’s no-go;
The little drop of blood, the six-six-sixing!
Believe me, I’m impressed by what I’m nixing;
It’s just as much in sorrow as in earnest
That I declare these sneakers must be furnaced;
For copyright has rules—no need to quote them;
As everybody surely knows, I wrote them.

by Hank Greenspan

“Burrowing Bunnies in Wales Unearth Trove of Prehistoric Artifacts”
—Smithsonian Magazine

Apparently, it’s habit
for erudite Welsh rabbit
to spot a shard and grab it.

by Ruth S. Baker

“A dog food company on Wednesday announced that it wants to pay people $27 an hour to look at
pictures of puppies.
ProDog Raw is looking to recruit 10 dog lovers to look at pictures of pups, as part of a study to test
whether dogs on social media can alleviate people’s stress levels.”
—WHDH.com

Dear ProDogRaw,
At your behest,
I here proclaim my interest
In this, your puppy-watching test.
I am a person deeply stressed,
With so much piled upon my chest
The level’s never been assessed;
My only hope, it’s manifest,
Resides in puppies; cutely dressed
Or naked (that, in fact, is best).
If I am chosen to be blessed,
You’ll find I never will divest
From puppy-gazing till—you guessed—
I’m just dog-tired.
PS: If pressed,
I might take less.
J’y suis, j’y reste.

by Dan Campion

“Somebody in the Kalahari Had a Crystal Collection 105,000 Years Ago”
—Haaretz

Before Lalique and Baccarat
And Waterford and Steuben,
Our ancestors cried out, “Ça va!”
For glass to plunk a cube in.

by Iris Herriot

“Japanese airline serves £390 in-flight meals on parked planes”
—The Guardian

Flightless so long, what joy to feel again
The thrill delivered only by a plane!
Forget the engine’s hum, the lifted wheels:
The real delight of flying is the meals.
So now, let’s welcome with nostalgic praise
The reappearance of those plastic trays,
And all the lordly cates upon them spread:
The pasta glue, the icy lumps of bread;
And hail the prospect innovated thus:
Cold coffee on an out-of-service bus;
A curly sandwich on a static train;
Or—less in cost but equally urbane—
Let’s seize the chance of putting out a thumb
And standing by the roadside, chewing gum.

(Confessions of an Easily Bruised Bard)

by Steve Bremner

“The Center City Vaccination Center runs because of more than 100 FEMA staff, 230 Department of Defense staff (including more than 220 sailors and marines), Civil Air Patrol mobilized in support of the Pa. Emergency Management Agency, and more than 40 Pa. National Guard members…”
—BillyPenn.com

I was called to the Huge Vaxing Center,
(For they’d classed me “1A or 1B”).
There were lines by the yard, lots of National Guard,
FEMA, cops, and a few CDC.
And swift and serene was the Center,
(Apart from a few muffled eeks);
I was jabbed, told: “Rest there, for a while, on that chair,”
Then told to come back in three weeks.

So I duly returned to the Center,
Where I offered my arm for more fun,
And the serviceman who was now giving Part Two
Said I had a bad bruise from Part One.
I was given a tag by the Center,
(Like those stickers, I VOTED TODAY):
Behold my bold owner, resistant to ‘Rona! …
I sneezed and the thing blew away.

So now I’m all done with the Center,
But my “site” is a pitiful sight;
It’s purple and blue with a yellowish hue,
And it hurts me to lie on at night.
And the band-aid bestowed by the Center?
Yes, I should’ve removed it way quicker.
I’ll not pick or pound it, I’ll just wash around it
Until it drops off like that sticker.

by Alex Steelsmith

“… New Orleans Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore was arrested… Lattimore had a loaded handgun, which was later found to be stolen. … At this early stage in the legal process, speculating on where things could develop would be irresponsible at best.”
—MSN

Fumbledy bumbledy,
Marshon D. Lattimore
blundered, but pundits should
show some restraint;

though the reporting’s not
hagiographical,
try to remember the
man is a Saint.

by Mike Mesterton-Gibbons

United Kingdom? Not in Scotland’s view—
Proud Scots are too fed up with English rule!
Their wish to leave, and stay in the EU,
Has scared the Brexiteer from Eton School,
Elected to rule Britain as a whole—
Unruly Scots refuse to let him be
Naysayer to an independence poll! …
In desperation, he opts to decree:
On any civic building, there must fly
No EU sign, no saltire, no Welsh rag—
Just bold Britannia’s banner hoisted high! …
And true Scots sigh while Boris, with his flag,
Can’t understand why only Sassenachs
Keep British buildings flying Union Jacks!

by Jerome Betts

“MPs unite to call for total ban on
‘wicked’ foie gras in the UK.”
—The Guardian

Force-fed grain through a funnel? Poor geese!
It gives a non-gourmet the shivers.
Sadly, humans alone, pre-decease,
Can complain of the state of their livers.

by Paul Willis

“Zoom says remote working is here to stay.”
—Today News Post

My audio is cutting out,
the chat has thrown a fit.
The ring light has begun to blink:
my face is barely lit.

My breakout room has broken down,
my screen share is a miser.
The URL has gotten lost,
and I am none the wiser.

The gallery has now become
the mug shots of ex-cons—
or yearbook portraits come alive
to haunt our dusks and dawns.

We Zoom Zoom Zoom both day and night
the length of this pandemic,
and now we’re Zoom Zoom zombies,
for the curse has gone systemic.

I do not wish to see you hid
among those little squares;
I wish that little virus would
just take us unawares.

In heaven, at least, we’ll recognize
each other face to face;
and that is some improvement on
this Zoomish, hellish place.

I know a bright, young man who made
his millions on Zoom stock;
I think that he should promptly be
put under key and lock.

I think he should be made to stare
upon the screen all day,
and when he dies, stark raving mad,
to send his bucks my way.

I’d buy a lush, green island—say,
the Isle of Innisfree—
and there among the clean bean rows
I’ll let you live with me.

We will have no computers there,
our phones will just be dumb.
The only things that fizz and Zoom
will be our Cokes and rum.

Oh, won’t it be tremendous there!
Oh, won’t it just be grand!
We’ll banish all technology
and live upon the land.

But when I have to take a job
that’s all too far away,
I’ll Zoom with you, and you with me
(lamentable apostasy!)—
for Zoom is here to stay.